The Senate Commerce Committee unanimously approved a bill yesterday that would increase the authorization for two key science agencies, create a new program of “Innovation Acceleration Grants” at federal agencies, create a council to oversee basic research efforts at NASA, and direct the National Academies to study “forms of risk that create barriers to innovation.”
The committee approved the bill — the “American Innovation and Competitiveness Act” (S. 2802), introduced by Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) — by a vote of 21-0 after a compromise was reached on a controversial amendment introduced by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). The amendment originally proposed by Hutchison would have directed NSF to place priority on funding efforts in “the physical and natural sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics” that would help meet “critical national needs in innovation and competitiveness.” The proposed amendment was seen as an attack on the social sciences by many in the science community and some of the members of the committee. Hutchison has not been a particular fan of social science research at NSF in recent years. Inside Higher Edreports that in a hearing earlier this year, Hutchison called social science research a “burden” on NSF that is distracting from the goal of technological competitiveness.
Hutchison reiterated her feeling that Congress should focus on science and technology because we are responding to a crisis in our country. Hutchison added that she is not against social sciences being part of the NSF budget, but that I want to make sure we focus on the mission we are after. Hutchison appeared to be using a broad definition of social science when she noted that biology, geology, economics, and archaeology are worthy pursuits, but can often stray from the innovation and competitiveness path.
She again cited specific NSF funded social science studies that she thinks should not be funded by the foundation. I object to the study of the impact of global changes on 300 women workers in Bangladesh, she said. I want good social science research, she adding, noting endeavors like the development of digital technology for teaching children.
Amidst pressure from other members of the committee, including Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) who proposed language that would strip the Hutchison language, and members of the science community (who objected not only to the attack on a particular discipline, but to the idea of congressional micromanagement of NSF), Hutchison modified her amendment. Instead of prioritizing research in the physical and natural sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (a broad collection of disciplines which Hutchison intended to include computer science as well), the modified amendment directs NSF to “include consideration of the degree to which awards and research activities may assist in meeting critical national needs in innovation and competitiveness.” The amendment also contains the limitation:
Nothing in this section shall be construed to restrict or bias the grant selection process against funding other areas of research deemed by the Foundation to be consistent with its mandate, nor to change the core mission of the Foundation.
Other provisions in the bill include language that would direct NSF to provide grants to community colleges to establish apprenticeship programs for women pursuing technical training, and to create a mentoring program for women in science, and technology, engineering and math (included in the bill as an amendment by Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI)); and another to establish a “President’s Council on Innovation and Competitiveness” to “develop a comprehensive agenda to promote innovation in the public and private sectors.”
One amendment proposed but not included in the bill would have inserted the text of H.R. 28, the “High Performance Computing Revitalization Act,” that passed the House in April of last year. We’ve covered H.R. 28 previously in this space, and joined with USACM in endorsing the measure. However, Cantwell’s amendment faced some resistance from Ensign for reasons that aren’t completely clear, but appear to be technical in nature. Apparently a provision in H.R. 28 that would call on PITAC (which still existed as a separate committee at the time of the bill’s passage in the House) to review the state of the federal IT R&D portfolio every two years was problematic — perhaps because the committee has now been folded into PCAST. In any case, as a compromise, Ensign committed to holding a hearing in the “near future” on H.R. 28 — which has languished in the Senate for more than a year without action — and the importance of high-performance computing to innovation. In return, Cantwell withdrew her amendment.
This is actually a positive development for the computing community, I think. H.R. 28, while a good bill, could use some tweaking — including addressing the issue with PITAC — and the discipline could surely use the additional exposure to be gained from a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on our issues. CRA will of course do what we can to help the committee prepare for the hearing and we’ll have more details as they come available.
In the meantime, here’s some additional coverage of the markup yesterday:
Last June, CRA joined with over 300 other science and university groups in filing comments (pdf) opposing the Department of Commerce’s proposed change to so-called “deemed export” regulations that would seriously impact university research efforts. A deemed export occurs when a foreign national “uses” technology subject to export restrictions while in the United States. The proposal would have made a number of significant changes:
Deemed export applications would be evaluated not just on country of citizenship and permanent residence, but on country of birth as well;
Expand the definition of use of controlled technologies to any form of instruction on their operation, including access to manuals and, by a conservative reading, visual access to a machine or source code; and
Exclude from the fundamental research exemption all research conducted under government sponsorship that is subject, either by regulation or prudential practice, to prepublication review.
CRA objected to the rule changes for a number of reasons — it’s unjust and anti-democratic to judge people on their country of birth; the rule changes concerning the word “use” are confusing; the rule would impose tremendous costs on researchers, their institutions and the Department of Commerce; the rule shows a misunderstanding of editorial review and how scientific research works; and we weren’t sure that a credible problem exists.
The Department of Commerce has apparently listened to the community in opposition and decided to step back from it’s proposed rule. A Bloomberg story with some of the detail is here. This is my favorite quote:
“I came to the conclusion it was a much sounder approach to actually think about the overarching policy and revisit basic assumptions and revisit objectives,” said [David] McCormick, [U.S. undersecretary of Commerce for industry and security].
The first appropriations numbers for elements of the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative are starting to percolate out, and they’re good. The House Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittee marked up their FY07 E&W Approps bill today, which contains funding for Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The appropriators have included the full funding requested by the President for ACI at the Office of Science — a 14 percent increase for the office over the FY 2006 level. The appropriators also included about $30 million within the office in “Congressionally directed funding,” but that is over and above the ACI amount. So very good news there.
Word is also that Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), who chairs the Science, State, Justice, Commerce appropriations subcommittee (which includes ACI agencies NSF and NIST), has said that he’s “taken care of ACI” in his bill as well. The SSJC bill won’t be marked up until June, but full funding of ACI would mean a 7.8 percent increase to NSF and a 24 percent increase to NIST’s core research programs — though the NIST number is a little trickier because of likely earmarking.
Wolf anticipates there will be some effort once the bill reaches the House floor to divert some of the ACI funding to other areas of the bill that received cuts (as happens every year with science funding) and so he’s looking to the science community to help with the fight. CRA will participate in that effort — we’ll have details soon how you can help, too.
No word yet on the Senate number — though for NSF, it’s not expected to be quite as good. The Senate appropriators are apparently more inclined to “take care” of NASA and NOAA in their bill, as those agencies didn’t fare quite as well in the President’s budget.
Of course, the fact that the House seems much more on board with actually providing funding for ACI is ironic given how non-committal (or downright hostile) the leadership seemed to be over the initiative in recent months. But that’s Washington….
Anyway, I’ll have more updates as the numbers become a little clearer. In the meantime, here’s a bit of the press release issued by the Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittee today.
ENERGY INITIATIVES:
The bill provides $24.373 billion for the Department of Energy, $327 million above the FY2006 level and $299 million above the request.
The bill fully funds the American Competitiveness Initiative which would strengthen basic research by increasing funding for the DOE Office of Science, for a total of $4.132 billion. In addition, the bill supports the Advanced Energy Initiative by increasing funding for a variety of clean energy technologies, including biomass, hydrogen, solar, wind, and clean coal.
The bill provides $150 million for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), the administrations initiative on recycling spent nuclear fuel, $96 million below the request but at the level authorized in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
Energy Supply and Conservation programs are funded at $2.0 billion, $102 million above FY06. The bill restores reductions in other essential energy programs, such as support for university nuclear energy education (funded at $27 million) and weatherization assistance (restoring $78 million cut for a total of $242.5 million).
Fossil Energy research and development programs are funded at $558 million, an increase of $88.5 over the request, to include $54 million for FutureGen, and $36.4 million for the Clean Coal Power Initiative.
The Bill funds the Yucca Mountain repository at $544.5 million. This includes $156.4 million for Nuclear Waste Disposal and $388 million for Defense Nuclear Waste Disposal. In addition, the Committee provides another $30 million for interim storage of spent fuel, subject to authorization.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which includes the nuclear weapons program, defense nuclear nonproliferation, naval reactors and the Office of the Administrator, is funded at $9.2 billion, an increase of $95 million over last year and $116 million below the Presidents request. Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation activities are funded at $1.6 billion, $22 million below FY06 and $133 million below the request. The bill provides $105 million for container screening at foreign ports, $65 million above the request. Weapons activities are funded at $6.4 billion, $42 million above FY06 and $4 million above the request. Within the Weapons Activities account, the bill targets $140 million for weapons complex reform and consolidation activities.
Defense Environmental Cleanup programs are funded at $5.55 billion, an increase of $161.5 million over the request. The Chairmans mark provides $600 million for the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. Non-defense Environmental Cleanup activities are funded at $309.9 million, a decrease of $0.4 million below the request.
The Power Marketing Administrations are funded at $252 million, $18 million below last year and the same as the request.
The Denali Commission total funding is $7.5 million. Appalachian Regional Commission is reduced by $30 million, total funding is $35.5 million The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is funded at $808.4 million, an increase of $40 million to provide for the anticipated growth in reactor license applications.
The bill terminates the following programs:
State energy program grants: $49.5 million
Geothermal R&D technology: $23 million
Natural gas R&D technologies: $20 million
Construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Plant and the Pit Disassembly and Conversion Facility at the Savannah Site: $368 million
The bill reduces total earmarks by $200 million, or 16 percent, compared to last years House bill.
Sen. John Sununu (R-NH), known as one of the biggest budget hawks on the Hill (in fact, he’s the highest ranked “taxpayers’ friend” in the Senate, according to the National Taxpayers Union) has his take on the current push for competitiveness legislation in today’s Washington Times. While it’s not surprising that he sees lots of “waste” when he looks at the competitiveness bills currently floating around the Senate, it’s encouraging that the essence of his Op-Ed is that the federal government’s real role in advancing competitiveness is in supporting fundamental research. Here’s a liberally-quoted bit from the piece (no pun intended):
As this debate moves forward, any legislation designed to promote American competitiveness and innovation should adhere to the following rules to ensure that American taxpayer dollars are not wasted or misused:
Focus on the basics. Federal funding for research and development should be applied toward basic science and technology, (such as chemistry, physics, material science and computational mathematics) rather than applied research, technology transfer or commercialization efforts. The private sector not the federal government has the obligation to advance the findings of basic research into marketable products and technologies. Equally troubling, legislators await the movement of a competitiveness bill in hopes they may attach pet research projects or fund a favored industry. Politicizing the process only undermines the integrity of peer review and dilutes the effectiveness of these resources.
Don’t over-promise. To date, Senate competitiveness bills are littered with increased authorization levels for various purposes. Billions of dollars would be needed to actually fund programs at such inflated levels. Given this scenario, reasonable authorization levels must be utilized to ensure that funding can actually be secured through the appropriations process. It would not be beneficial to repeat an example from 2002, when Congress reauthorized the NSF with the goal of doubling its annual funding. Ultimately, NSF appropriations never approached such levels.
Limit new programs. Like so many other sound-bite driven “debates” in Congress, competitiveness proposals often boil down to the usual simplistic solution: Create more government programs. How many times do we have to go down this same costly road? And when was the last time we dealt effectively with a complex problem by creating new federal programs? One Senate bill would create more than 20 new programs without eliminating a single one. Dozens already exist, including the Advanced Technology Program, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and other questionable expenditures of funds. Congress should not create new programs without a thorough review of the value and efficacy of existing programs. Otherwise, we are merely diverting funding to new programs and layers of bureaucracy when such money could be used on basic research.
Make hard decisions. Once realistic authorization levels are established, Congress needs to make the necessary adjustments to ensure funding increases actually occur. Spending billions on a competitiveness agenda through deficit spending restricts future economic growth, and stunts future innovation and competitiveness. If we are to increase funding for a competitiveness agenda, legislation needs to include necessary rescissions and program repeals to remain budget neutral.
Don’t play favorites. Given the popularity of a competitiveness initiative, it is disappointing that agencies integrally involved in basic research are being ignored. For instance, NASA’s basic science mission, referred to by many as its crown jewel, results in significant scientific findings. Ironically, the administration recently proposed that planned spending for these accounts be cut by more than $3 billion over the next few years, a decision NASA Administrator Michael Griffin admitted was made solely for budgetary reasons. How is this internally consistent for the administration?
If done for the right reasons, a successful plan to invest new resources in scientific research can have a positive impact. Without discipline and focus, however, Congress is doomed to repeat the same mistakes, fund more failed programs and expand federal bureaucracy.
America’s technology-driven economy grows despite, not because of, government intervention. That is a lesson we all need to learn before trying to “fix” what ails us.
While we could quibble with a lot of that — the difference between “basic” and “applied” research is often not so cut and dried as he implies, authorizing NSF’s doubling sent an important signal, etc — it’s hard to imagine getting a more favorable endorsement from a fiscal conservative of the portions of the ACI we care most about. It’s certainly a more thoughtful response to the President’s plan than a recent conservative think tank take, which ignored the R&D portion of the ACI completely….
Anyway, even if you disagree with the perspective, Sununu’s OpEd is worth reading.
Update: (Jun 8, 2006) — The search is over! We’ll have an official announcement soon, but the position is now filled. Blog posting frequency should return to its normal rate (a few times a week) soon! Original Post: As long-time readers of this blog have probably realized, things in CRA’s Washington policy office have been growing steadily busier and busier as CRA’s influence in DC has grown. (Posting frequency here is inversely proportional to the policy workload). This is a very good thing for us and, we’d argue, for the community as well. Our arguments are getting heard. Our counsel is being sought.
But, in response, CRA’s policy office has to grow as well. So we are. Today we’re announcing the creation of a new Policy Analyst position within our Washington, DC, office. I thought I’d post the position announcement here, in addition to the usual places, because I think the type of person we’re looking for might be reading this blog (at least, I hope they would). In any case, here it is:
POLICY ANALYST
The Computing Research Association, the national voice of the computing research community, seeks to increase its Washington, DC, presence with the addition of a Policy Analyst. This position will work closely with the Director of Government Affairs, providing research support, tracking and managing a portfolio of policy issues, and helping communicate with CRA’s membership.
The ideal candidate will have a Bachelors degree in information technology, public policy or a related field; some experience in a policy-oriented environment; excellent verbal and written skills; web skills; and a demonstrated interest in federal research policy and IT. Interested candidates should submit a resume with cover letter describing qualifications and salary requirements to analyst@cra.org.
CRA’s a special place with a great staff, a highly-engaged and prominent board, and a real role to play in the future of the field. So, if you’re reading this and think the position might sound appealing to you, please take the time to respond. If you think it might appeal to someone you know, please forward it on!
Another quick pointer to some articles of potential interest of readers. FCW has three noteworthy pieces today.
Michael Hardy has a good article on whether government and industry remain committed enough to research to keep the U.S. competitive in the years to come.
At one time, the United States was the undisputed center of innovative technology development in the world and the U.S. government led the charge. Because of government research, sleek cylinders carried men to the moon, and later, sleek cables carried data worldwide, a breakthrough that would come to be known as the Internet.
Times have changed. Other countries are emerging as technology centers, and the U.S. government has stepped back from its leadership position, letting the private sector try to fill the gap. Technology has made the world flat, in the words of author Thomas Friedman, so that oceans and borders are no longer boundaries to the flow of expertise and inspiration.
This evolution has many ramifications. Some fear that the United States is losing its stature as a world leader in innovation. Others point to the profit motives of industry, saying that research without a probable commercial application is less likely to get done if government doesnt do it.
And Aliya Sternstein has two pieces of interest. One is a good survey of some of the legislation currently in circulation surrounding the competitiveness and innovation issue. The other details the NSTC Cyber Security plan we covered recently. Sternstein has a good quote from former CRA board chair (and current Government Affairs committee co-Chair) Ed Lazowzka:
Ed Lazowska, co-chairman of the Presidents IT Advisory Committee from 2003 until its authorization expired in June 2005, said the government must increase funding to reach the goals listed in the report.
“So my entreaty to Dr. Marburger is, ‘Spare me the commendations and show me the money,'” Lazowska said. “It’s time for leadership and investment.”
Just a quick pointer to an interesting Computerworld <a href=article featuring comments from Kenneth Berman, Randy Bryant, John Canny, Jaime Carbonell, Bernard Chazelle, and William Dally on the current state of computer science. Here’s a snippet:
How can CS be made a more attractive choice for students? Bryant: We should stop scaring them away. Predicting that all IT jobs will move offshore could become self-fulfilling. New jobs are growing faster than old jobs are moving offshore, and that trend will continue. We need to stop putting them to sleep. Students who take computer science classes in high school are taught how to write programs in Java, and their assignments have them writing code that does tedious things like sort lists of numbers. They do not learn about any of the big ideas of computer science. Chazelle: I roll my eyes when I hear students say, “CS is boring, so I’ll go into finance.” Do they know how dull it is to spend all-nighters running the numbers for a merger-and-acquisition deal? No.
People have run away from CS because they are worried about outsourcing. This is a valid concern that can’t be waved away by simply repeating the mantra that CS is cool. Dally: We need to clear up many misconceptions about the field. Prospective students should understand that there are plenty of CS jobs in the U.S. and they pay well, that most CS jobs involve working with teams of people and place a premium on communication skills and teamwork — it’s not just a bunch of nerds working individually at terminals — and that CS is so central to so many aspects of our economy that a CS education is good preparation for many careers. Canny: We’re losing in quality — principally to bioengineering, which is now the best students’ top choice — and diversity. It’s a problem of social relevance. Minorities and women moved fastest into areas such as law and medicine that have obvious and compelling social impact. We’ve never cared much about social impact in CS.
The Congressional Budget Resolution — the first real step in the annual appropriations process — has not gotten off to the smoothest of starts. The budget resolution is Congress’ response to the President’s budget request and, if passed, would set the total level of discretionary spending the appropriators would have to hand out over the course of passing their annual appropriations bills. Beyond that top-level number, the rest of the resolution isn’t incredibly significant. The budget resolution is divided into a number of “budget functions” that describe general areas of federal discretionary spending. “Function 250,” for example, is the “General Science, Space and Technology” account, from which NASA, NSF, DOE Office of Science and DHS S&T would ostensibly receive their money. In truth, however, the budget functions described in the Congressional budget resolution only loosely correlate to the final agency appropriations levels.
[Here’s the wonky digression….] If the House and Senate agree on a budget resolution, that top-level discretionary number becomes binding. It’s what’s called the 302(a) allocation, and it would represent the total amount of discretionary funding the government has available to spend this year. From that number, the House and Senate leadership and the respective Appropriations committees have to decide how that money gets parceled out to the appropriations subcommittees, each responsible for a single appropriations bill this year. Confusingly, the subcommittee jurisdictions don’t line up neatly with the budget functions laid out in the resolution, however. Three different subcommittees, for example, are responsible for agencies that receive funding from the Function 250 account mentioned above: the Science, State, Justice, Commerce (or, more confusingly, just the Commerce, Science, Justice committee in the Senate) subcommittee; the Energy and Water subcommittee; and the Homeland Security subcommittee. Since the budget resolution doesn’t specify funding levels for particular agencies, the appropriators and leadership sort of, well, wing it when it comes to parceling out the 302(b)s. Ok, it’s not quite winging it, but they do only use the budget resolution to “advise” the process, not direct it explicitly.
So, why does this all matter then? And what’s going on with the budget resolution this year?
The budget resolution is a prime indicator of the political climate for various funding issues. It’s the first clear opportunity we get to assess the mood of the two parties — and maybe more importantly, the various factions within the parties — towards funding the programs we care most about. This year’s budget resolution so far tells us that funding for science has strong support in the Senate, strong support from the House Democrats, and not much obvious support from the House GOP leadership. This isn’t terribly surprising given recent events, but it’s also not terribly encouraging as we move forward with the appropriations process.
Here’s where we stand:
The Senate passed its version of the FY 07 budget resolution in mid-March. Included in the Senate resolution is enough funding for the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative, plus some additional spending — $16 billion over the President’s proposed discretionary cap of $873 billion, in part to make up for cuts in Health and Education proposed in the President’s budget.
On March 29, the House Budget Committee passed a more parsimonious version of the resolution, sticking to the President’s cap, but not guaranteeing budget space for the President’s ACI. In the House version, the account that would include funding for the ACI-targeted agencies (NSF, NIST and DOE Office of Science) along with funding for NASA — the “Function 250” account, for which the President requested $26.3 billion — would receive $300 million less than the President’s request. (In contrast, the Senate included $100 million more than the President’s request for Function 250 in their budget resolution.)
The House leadership was hoping to vote on their resolution two weeks ago, before the Congressional “Spring/Easter Break.” However, that process faltered when two factions of the GOP — the moderates and the appropriators — rebelled and threatened to vote against the measure. The moderates don’t believe the measure provides enough discretionary spending for their priorities (which, for some, include fully-funding the ACI), the appropriators are concerned about language that would force them to get approval from the budget committee before considering any “emergency supplemental” spending bills, which have proven to be attractive vehicles for pork. So the leadership pulled the resolution without allowing a vote and decided to take advantage of the two-week spring Congressional recess to try to make some deals. The leadership plans to continue working this week to strike a deal with enough GOP members to put the resolution to a vote again next week.
Failing to get a deal done could have serious consequences. In the House, it’s actually not too big a problem. In the absence of a deal, the House leadership can “deem” a budget with an $873 billion discretionary cap. It opens them up to charges of being a “do-nothing” Congress from the Democrats and isn’t a great showing by Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) in his first budget negotiation, but for all practical purposes, the House leadership would probably be fine with the $873 billion figure.
The Senate doesn’t have the ability to “deem” a final number, however, so failing to reach an agreement would mean that the Senate would be forced to use the FY 07 budget number contained in the FY 06 Budget Resolution passed last year — which would set the discretionary number at $866 billion, $7 billion below the President’s request and $23 billion below the number the Senate passed last month. Finding $23 billion to cut in the President’s budget won’t be easy, and unfortunately, one juicy target would be the increases proposed as part of the ACI.
So, the science community is hoping that a deal can be struck to get the House and Senate numbers a little closer together. The computing community is part of the effort to urge the House leadership to include funding for ACI in the budget resolution, citing the ACI’s importance to computing research and computing research’s significant contribution to current and future American competitiveness. The leadership and supporters of the computing research community have taken advantage of this opportunity to put the case to the House Leadership, at a time when they can take a relatively easy step to address it (all told, the increase for R&D in the ACI is less than $1 billion). Here’s the letter (pdf) that resulted (and was delivered on Friday):
SUPPORTING COMPUTING RESEARCH AND INNOVATION
April 21, 2006
The Honorable Dennis Hastert
Speaker
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Speaker Hastert,
As leaders and supporters of the computing research community, we write to express our concern that the proposed House Budget Resolution does not assume full funding for President Bushs American Competitiveness Initiative. We respectfully request that Congress embrace this initiative by fully funding the Presidents request in the budget resolution.
Numerous high-profile reports have pointed out the significant challenges that America faces from fierce and growing global competition. The Presidents plan recognizes the critical linkage between the federal investment in fundamental research and the rise in innovation that will be required to respond to these challenges. The Presidents call for increasing investment in basic research in the physical sciences represents a historic opportunity to secure the Nations leadership in research in information technology and other physical sciences and help ensure Americas future competitiveness.
The computing research field is a very concrete example of how federal investments in fundamental research drive economic growth. The field has a long history of creating revolutionary technologies that have enabled entirely new industries and driven productivity growth so critical to U.S. leadership in the new economy. A 2002 National Academies report found that federal support for computing research helped create 19 multibillion-dollar industries and made America the global leader in information technology. Further, several noted economists, including Alan Greenspan have cited the key role that information technology continues to play in driving U.S. productivity. Flat or declining agency budgets supporting computing research have created a significant concern within our community that we will cede these gains and our leadership by putting future innovation at risk.
The Presidents American Competitiveness Initiative provides more funding for the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energys Office of Science, and the core labs program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Each agency plays an important role in funding computing research. While the House Budget Resolution does increase funding for sciences broadly, it is not clear that the increase will be enough to fund the Presidents initiative. We specifically ask that the budget resolution allocate enough funding to ensure the Presidents proposal can be met during the appropriations process.
Thank you for considering our request. We look forward to working with you as the Budget Resolution and appropriations for these agencies move through Congress.
Sincerely, The American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) The Association for Computing Machinery, U.S. Public Policy Committee (USACM) Cisco Systems, Inc. The Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC) The Computing Research Association (CRA) The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA) Intel Corporation Microsoft Corporation The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)
Thanks especially to Cisco, Intel and Microsoft who put some of their political capital on the line to sign on to this important message. Their presence is very good news for our efforts and lends considerable weight to this letter.
Also good news is the fact that the President continues to tour the country making the case for the ACI. Last week the President stumped on the issue at a high school in Maryland, at Tuskegee Institute, and at Cisco in Silicon Valley. Tom Abate of the San Francisco Chroniclehas coverage of the President’s visit to Cisco. The visit spawned this very supportive editorial in the San Jose Mercury News. Here’s a snippet:
As the president himself pointed out at Tuskegee University on Wednesday, it was through federally funded research that “the Internet came to be.” Other fruits of government-funded research include search technologies that spawned companies like Google, microprocessors breakthroughs that turned Apple, Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics into powerhouses, and countless technological advances that delivered enormous benefits to the economy. Future research in new energy technologies, for example, could help reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil and turn the nation into a world leader in clean energy.
And without the investment, America’s eroding ability to compete globally is certain to deteriorate further. Nations such as China and India, Russia, Ireland and countless others are emerging as economic powers in part because they are willing to invest in themselves, in the education of their children and in the training of their workers.
…
The seeds of America’s prosperity over the past few decades were planted in the late 1950s, when the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union prodded President Eisenhower to call for massive investments in education, infrastructure and research. The time to secure our children’s prosperity is now.
The President’s continued efforts and the support of industry (pdf) are crucially important in getting ACI enacted and the funding levels called for in the initiative appropriated. As that last pdf points out, the amounts we’re talking about here are not large — indeed, in the context of the federal budget they are quite literally a rounding error — and yet the potential payoff is dramatic. Hopefully the leadership will figure that out as they decide on their allocations….
The National Science and Technology Council, the cabinet-level council that coordinates S&T policies across the Federal Government, released (pdf) its plan for federal investment in cyber security research and development today. The 121-page report (pdf), called Federal Plan for Cyber Security and Information Assurance Research and Development, “sets out a framework for multi-agency coordination of Federal R&D investments in technologies that can better secure the interconnected computing systems, networks, and information that together make up the U.S. information technology (IT) infrastructure.” Here’s more from their release (pdf):
“This country’s IT infrastructure — which includes not only the public Internet but also the networking and IT systems that control critical infrastructures ranging from power grids to emergency communications systems — is vital not only to our national and homeland security but to our economic security,” said John H. Marburger III, Science Adviser to the President and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. “This report provides a blueprint for coordination of Federal R&D across agencies that will maximize the impact of investments in this key area of the national interest.”
The Federal Plan for Cyber Security and Information Assurance outlines strategic objectives for coordinated Federal R&D in cyber security and information assurance (CSIA). The Plan presents a broad range of CSIA R&D technical topics and identifies those topics that are multi- agency technical and funding priorities. The Plans findings and recommendations address R&D priority-setting, coordination, fundamental R&D, emerging technologies, roadmapping, and metrics. Together with commentaries about the CSIA R&D technical topics that describe their significance, the current state of the art, and gaps in current capabilities, these elements provide a baseline for implementing the Plans recommendations.
Findings and Recommendations Strategic interagency R&D is needed to strengthen the cyber security and information assurance of the Nations IT infrastructure. Planning and conducting such R&D will require concerted Federal activities on several fronts as well as collaboration with the private sector. The specifics of the strategy proposed in this Plan are articulated in a set of findings and recommendations. Presented in greater detail in the report, these findings and recommendations are summarized as follows:
1. Target Federal R&D investments to strategic cyber security and information assurance needs — Federal cyber security and information assurance R&D managers should reassess the Nations strategic and longer-term cyber security and information assurance needs to ensure that Federal R&D addresses those needs and avoids areas in which the private sector is productively engaged.
2. Focus on threats with the greatest potential impact — Federal agencies should focus cyber security and information assurance R&D investments on high- impact threats as well as on investigation of innovative approaches to increasing the overall security and information assurance of IT systems.
3. Make cyber security and information assurance R&D both an individual agency and an interagency budget priority — Agencies should consider cyber security and information assurance R&D policy guidance as they address their mission-related R&D requirements. To achieve the greatest possible benefit from investments throughout the Federal government, cyber security and information assurance R&D should have high priority for individual agencies as well as for coordinated interagency efforts.
4. Support sustained interagency coordination and collaboration on cyber security and information assurance R&D — Sustained coordination and collaboration among agencies will be required to accomplish the goals identified in this Plan. The CSIA IWG should continue to be the primary vehicle for this R&D coordination and collaboration.
5. Build security in from the beginning — The Federal cyber security and information assurance R&D portfolio should support fundamental R&D exploring inherently more secure next-generation technologies that will replace todays patching of the current insecure infrastructure.
6. Assess security implications of emerging information technologies — The Federal government should assess the security implications and the potential impact of R&D results in new information technologies as they emerge in such fields as optical computing, quantum computing, and pervasively embedded computing.
7. Develop a roadmap for Federal cyber security and information assurance — R&D Agencies should use this Plans technical priorities and investment analyses to work with the private sector to develop a roadmap of cyber security and information assurance R&D priorities. This effort should emphasize coordinated agency activities that address technical and investment gaps and should accelerate development of strategic capabilities.
8. Develop and apply new metrics to assess cyber security and information assurance — As part of roadmapping, Federal agencies should develop and implement a multiagency plan to support the R&D for a new generation of methods and technologies for cost-effectively measuring IT component, network, and system security.
9. Institute more effective coordination with the private sector — The Federal government should review private- sector cyber security and information assurance practices and countermeasures to help identify capability gaps in existing technologies, and should engage the private sector in efforts to better understand private-sector views on cyber security and information assurance R&D priorities. Federal agencies supporting cyber security and information assurance R&D should improve communication and coordination with operators of both Federal and private-sector critical infrastructures with shared interests. Information exchange and outreach activities that accelerate technology transition should be integral parts of Federal cyber security and information assurance R&D activities.
10. Strengthen R&D partnerships, including those with international partners — The Federal government should foster a broad partnership of government, the IT industry, researchers, and private-sector users to develop, test, and deploy a more secure next-generation Internet. The Federal government should initiate this partnership by holding a national workshop to solicit views and guidance on cyber security and information assurance R&D needs from stakeholders outside of the Federal research community. In addition, impediments to collaborative international R&D should be identified and addressed in order to facilitate joint activities that support the common interests of the United States and international partners.
Seems hard to quibble with much of that. As the NCO press release indicates, they’re accepting comments on the report to aid in the “planning of next steps.” Those comments are due by April 28th, so get cracking.
We’ll have more as CRA prepares its comments on the plan (we’ve had strong opinions on the issue in the past).
[Editor’s note: Apologies to regular readers for the lag in posts here recently. Lots going on around town and at CRA HQ — along with some posting fingers that are getting a little worn after 400+ posts over the last couple of years — but things should be better very soon. 🙂 Thanks for the patience!]
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Senate Commerce Committee Approves Key Innovation Authorization; Commits to a Hearing on Computing
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, Policy /by Peter HarshaThe Senate Commerce Committee unanimously approved a bill yesterday that would increase the authorization for two key science agencies, create a new program of “Innovation Acceleration Grants” at federal agencies, create a council to oversee basic research efforts at NASA, and direct the National Academies to study “forms of risk that create barriers to innovation.”
The committee approved the bill — the “American Innovation and Competitiveness Act” (S. 2802), introduced by Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) — by a vote of 21-0 after a compromise was reached on a controversial amendment introduced by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). The amendment originally proposed by Hutchison would have directed NSF to place priority on funding efforts in “the physical and natural sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics” that would help meet “critical national needs in innovation and competitiveness.” The proposed amendment was seen as an attack on the social sciences by many in the science community and some of the members of the committee. Hutchison has not been a particular fan of social science research at NSF in recent years. Inside Higher Ed reports that in a hearing earlier this year, Hutchison called social science research a “burden” on NSF that is distracting from the goal of technological competitiveness.
Amidst pressure from other members of the committee, including Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) who proposed language that would strip the Hutchison language, and members of the science community (who objected not only to the attack on a particular discipline, but to the idea of congressional micromanagement of NSF), Hutchison modified her amendment. Instead of prioritizing research in the physical and natural sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (a broad collection of disciplines which Hutchison intended to include computer science as well), the modified amendment directs NSF to “include consideration of the degree to which awards and research activities may assist in meeting critical national needs in innovation and competitiveness.” The amendment also contains the limitation:
Other provisions in the bill include language that would direct NSF to provide grants to community colleges to establish apprenticeship programs for women pursuing technical training, and to create a mentoring program for women in science, and technology, engineering and math (included in the bill as an amendment by Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI)); and another to establish a “President’s Council on Innovation and Competitiveness” to “develop a comprehensive agenda to promote innovation in the public and private sectors.”
One amendment proposed but not included in the bill would have inserted the text of H.R. 28, the “High Performance Computing Revitalization Act,” that passed the House in April of last year. We’ve covered H.R. 28 previously in this space, and joined with USACM in endorsing the measure. However, Cantwell’s amendment faced some resistance from Ensign for reasons that aren’t completely clear, but appear to be technical in nature. Apparently a provision in H.R. 28 that would call on PITAC (which still existed as a separate committee at the time of the bill’s passage in the House) to review the state of the federal IT R&D portfolio every two years was problematic — perhaps because the committee has now been folded into PCAST. In any case, as a compromise, Ensign committed to holding a hearing in the “near future” on H.R. 28 — which has languished in the Senate for more than a year without action — and the importance of high-performance computing to innovation. In return, Cantwell withdrew her amendment.
This is actually a positive development for the computing community, I think. H.R. 28, while a good bill, could use some tweaking — including addressing the issue with PITAC — and the discipline could surely use the additional exposure to be gained from a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on our issues. CRA will of course do what we can to help the committee prepare for the hearing and we’ll have more details as they come available.
In the meantime, here’s some additional coverage of the markup yesterday:
Commerce Department Wisely Rethinks Deemed Export Plan
/In: People, Policy, R&D in the Press, Research /by Peter HarshaLast June, CRA joined with over 300 other science and university groups in filing comments (pdf) opposing the Department of Commerce’s proposed change to so-called “deemed export” regulations that would seriously impact university research efforts. A deemed export occurs when a foreign national “uses” technology subject to export restrictions while in the United States. The proposal would have made a number of significant changes:
CRA objected to the rule changes for a number of reasons — it’s unjust and anti-democratic to judge people on their country of birth; the rule changes concerning the word “use” are confusing; the rule would impose tremendous costs on researchers, their institutions and the Department of Commerce; the rule shows a misunderstanding of editorial review and how scientific research works; and we weren’t sure that a credible problem exists.
The Department of Commerce has apparently listened to the community in opposition and decided to step back from it’s proposed rule. A Bloomberg story with some of the detail is here. This is my favorite quote:
Read the whole thing.
Here’s CRA’s original coverage of the proposed rule and our filed comments (pdf).
A nice win for the science community….
First Appropriations Numbers for ACI
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY07 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaThe first appropriations numbers for elements of the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative are starting to percolate out, and they’re good. The House Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittee marked up their FY07 E&W Approps bill today, which contains funding for Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The appropriators have included the full funding requested by the President for ACI at the Office of Science — a 14 percent increase for the office over the FY 2006 level. The appropriators also included about $30 million within the office in “Congressionally directed funding,” but that is over and above the ACI amount. So very good news there.
Word is also that Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), who chairs the Science, State, Justice, Commerce appropriations subcommittee (which includes ACI agencies NSF and NIST), has said that he’s “taken care of ACI” in his bill as well. The SSJC bill won’t be marked up until June, but full funding of ACI would mean a 7.8 percent increase to NSF and a 24 percent increase to NIST’s core research programs — though the NIST number is a little trickier because of likely earmarking.
Wolf anticipates there will be some effort once the bill reaches the House floor to divert some of the ACI funding to other areas of the bill that received cuts (as happens every year with science funding) and so he’s looking to the science community to help with the fight. CRA will participate in that effort — we’ll have details soon how you can help, too.
No word yet on the Senate number — though for NSF, it’s not expected to be quite as good. The Senate appropriators are apparently more inclined to “take care” of NASA and NOAA in their bill, as those agencies didn’t fare quite as well in the President’s budget.
Of course, the fact that the House seems much more on board with actually providing funding for ACI is ironic given how non-committal (or downright hostile) the leadership seemed to be over the initiative in recent months. But that’s Washington….
Anyway, I’ll have more updates as the numbers become a little clearer. In the meantime, here’s a bit of the press release issued by the Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittee today.
Sen. Sununu on Competitiveness and R&D
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY07 Appropriations, Policy, R&D in the Press /by Peter HarshaSen. John Sununu (R-NH), known as one of the biggest budget hawks on the Hill (in fact, he’s the highest ranked “taxpayers’ friend” in the Senate, according to the National Taxpayers Union) has his take on the current push for competitiveness legislation in today’s Washington Times. While it’s not surprising that he sees lots of “waste” when he looks at the competitiveness bills currently floating around the Senate, it’s encouraging that the essence of his Op-Ed is that the federal government’s real role in advancing competitiveness is in supporting fundamental research. Here’s a liberally-quoted bit from the piece (no pun intended):
While we could quibble with a lot of that — the difference between “basic” and “applied” research is often not so cut and dried as he implies, authorizing NSF’s doubling sent an important signal, etc — it’s hard to imagine getting a more favorable endorsement from a fiscal conservative of the portions of the ACI we care most about. It’s certainly a more thoughtful response to the President’s plan than a recent conservative think tank take, which ignored the R&D portion of the ACI completely….
Anyway, even if you disagree with the perspective, Sununu’s OpEd is worth reading.
We Want You! (Well, one of you)
/In: CRA /by Peter HarshaUpdate: (Jun 8, 2006) — The search is over! We’ll have an official announcement soon, but the position is now filled. Blog posting frequency should return to its normal rate (a few times a week) soon!
Original Post: As long-time readers of this blog have probably realized, things in CRA’s Washington policy office have been growing steadily busier and busier as CRA’s influence in DC has grown. (Posting frequency here is inversely proportional to the policy workload). This is a very good thing for us and, we’d argue, for the community as well. Our arguments are getting heard. Our counsel is being sought.
But, in response, CRA’s policy office has to grow as well. So we are. Today we’re announcing the creation of a new Policy Analyst position within our Washington, DC, office. I thought I’d post the position announcement here, in addition to the usual places, because I think the type of person we’re looking for might be reading this blog (at least, I hope they would). In any case, here it is:
CRA’s a special place with a great staff, a highly-engaged and prominent board, and a real role to play in the future of the field. So, if you’re reading this and think the position might sound appealing to you, please take the time to respond. If you think it might appeal to someone you know, please forward it on!
Federal Computer Week on ACI and Cyber security
/In: R&D in the Press /by Peter HarshaAnother quick pointer to some articles of potential interest of readers. FCW has three noteworthy pieces today.
Michael Hardy has a good article on whether government and industry remain committed enough to research to keep the U.S. competitive in the years to come.
And Aliya Sternstein has two pieces of interest. One is a good survey of some of the legislation currently in circulation surrounding the competitiveness and innovation issue. The other details the NSTC Cyber Security plan we covered recently. Sternstein has a good quote from former CRA board chair (and current Government Affairs committee co-Chair) Ed Lazowzka:
Links to all the stories:
CS Faculty Opine on CS in Computerworld
/In: R&D in the Press /by Peter HarshaJust a quick pointer to an interesting Computerworld <a href=article featuring comments from Kenneth Berman, Randy Bryant, John Canny, Jaime Carbonell, Bernard Chazelle, and William Dally on the current state of computer science. Here’s a snippet:
Read the whole thing.
Budget Update: Really Wonky, But Some Good News at the End
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, FY07 Appropriations, R&D in the Press /by Peter HarshaThe Congressional Budget Resolution — the first real step in the annual appropriations process — has not gotten off to the smoothest of starts. The budget resolution is Congress’ response to the President’s budget request and, if passed, would set the total level of discretionary spending the appropriators would have to hand out over the course of passing their annual appropriations bills. Beyond that top-level number, the rest of the resolution isn’t incredibly significant. The budget resolution is divided into a number of “budget functions” that describe general areas of federal discretionary spending. “Function 250,” for example, is the “General Science, Space and Technology” account, from which NASA, NSF, DOE Office of Science and DHS S&T would ostensibly receive their money. In truth, however, the budget functions described in the Congressional budget resolution only loosely correlate to the final agency appropriations levels.
[Here’s the wonky digression….] If the House and Senate agree on a budget resolution, that top-level discretionary number becomes binding. It’s what’s called the 302(a) allocation, and it would represent the total amount of discretionary funding the government has available to spend this year. From that number, the House and Senate leadership and the respective Appropriations committees have to decide how that money gets parceled out to the appropriations subcommittees, each responsible for a single appropriations bill this year. Confusingly, the subcommittee jurisdictions don’t line up neatly with the budget functions laid out in the resolution, however. Three different subcommittees, for example, are responsible for agencies that receive funding from the Function 250 account mentioned above: the Science, State, Justice, Commerce (or, more confusingly, just the Commerce, Science, Justice committee in the Senate) subcommittee; the Energy and Water subcommittee; and the Homeland Security subcommittee. Since the budget resolution doesn’t specify funding levels for particular agencies, the appropriators and leadership sort of, well, wing it when it comes to parceling out the 302(b)s. Ok, it’s not quite winging it, but they do only use the budget resolution to “advise” the process, not direct it explicitly.
So, why does this all matter then? And what’s going on with the budget resolution this year?
The budget resolution is a prime indicator of the political climate for various funding issues. It’s the first clear opportunity we get to assess the mood of the two parties — and maybe more importantly, the various factions within the parties — towards funding the programs we care most about. This year’s budget resolution so far tells us that funding for science has strong support in the Senate, strong support from the House Democrats, and not much obvious support from the House GOP leadership. This isn’t terribly surprising given recent events, but it’s also not terribly encouraging as we move forward with the appropriations process.
Here’s where we stand:
The Senate passed its version of the FY 07 budget resolution in mid-March. Included in the Senate resolution is enough funding for the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative, plus some additional spending — $16 billion over the President’s proposed discretionary cap of $873 billion, in part to make up for cuts in Health and Education proposed in the President’s budget.
On March 29, the House Budget Committee passed a more parsimonious version of the resolution, sticking to the President’s cap, but not guaranteeing budget space for the President’s ACI. In the House version, the account that would include funding for the ACI-targeted agencies (NSF, NIST and DOE Office of Science) along with funding for NASA — the “Function 250” account, for which the President requested $26.3 billion — would receive $300 million less than the President’s request. (In contrast, the Senate included $100 million more than the President’s request for Function 250 in their budget resolution.)
The House leadership was hoping to vote on their resolution two weeks ago, before the Congressional “Spring/Easter Break.” However, that process faltered when two factions of the GOP — the moderates and the appropriators — rebelled and threatened to vote against the measure. The moderates don’t believe the measure provides enough discretionary spending for their priorities (which, for some, include fully-funding the ACI), the appropriators are concerned about language that would force them to get approval from the budget committee before considering any “emergency supplemental” spending bills, which have proven to be attractive vehicles for pork. So the leadership pulled the resolution without allowing a vote and decided to take advantage of the two-week spring Congressional recess to try to make some deals. The leadership plans to continue working this week to strike a deal with enough GOP members to put the resolution to a vote again next week.
Failing to get a deal done could have serious consequences. In the House, it’s actually not too big a problem. In the absence of a deal, the House leadership can “deem” a budget with an $873 billion discretionary cap. It opens them up to charges of being a “do-nothing” Congress from the Democrats and isn’t a great showing by Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) in his first budget negotiation, but for all practical purposes, the House leadership would probably be fine with the $873 billion figure.
The Senate doesn’t have the ability to “deem” a final number, however, so failing to reach an agreement would mean that the Senate would be forced to use the FY 07 budget number contained in the FY 06 Budget Resolution passed last year — which would set the discretionary number at $866 billion, $7 billion below the President’s request and $23 billion below the number the Senate passed last month. Finding $23 billion to cut in the President’s budget won’t be easy, and unfortunately, one juicy target would be the increases proposed as part of the ACI.
So, the science community is hoping that a deal can be struck to get the House and Senate numbers a little closer together. The computing community is part of the effort to urge the House leadership to include funding for ACI in the budget resolution, citing the ACI’s importance to computing research and computing research’s significant contribution to current and future American competitiveness. The leadership and supporters of the computing research community have taken advantage of this opportunity to put the case to the House Leadership, at a time when they can take a relatively easy step to address it (all told, the increase for R&D in the ACI is less than $1 billion). Here’s the letter (pdf) that resulted (and was delivered on Friday):
Thanks especially to Cisco, Intel and Microsoft who put some of their political capital on the line to sign on to this important message. Their presence is very good news for our efforts and lends considerable weight to this letter.
Also good news is the fact that the President continues to tour the country making the case for the ACI. Last week the President stumped on the issue at a high school in Maryland, at Tuskegee Institute, and at Cisco in Silicon Valley. Tom Abate of the San Francisco Chronicle has coverage of the President’s visit to Cisco. The visit spawned this very supportive editorial in the San Jose Mercury News. Here’s a snippet:
The President’s continued efforts and the support of industry (pdf) are crucially important in getting ACI enacted and the funding levels called for in the initiative appropriated. As that last pdf points out, the amounts we’re talking about here are not large — indeed, in the context of the federal budget they are quite literally a rounding error — and yet the potential payoff is dramatic. Hopefully the leadership will figure that out as they decide on their allocations….
Can’t Resist…
/In: Misc. /by Peter HarshaJay Vegso suggested this should load on CRA’s homepage, but I think I can get away with it here.
Yip-yips meet the computer.
NSTC Releases Cyber Security R&D Report
/In: Security /by Peter HarshaThe National Science and Technology Council, the cabinet-level council that coordinates S&T policies across the Federal Government, released (pdf) its plan for federal investment in cyber security research and development today. The 121-page report (pdf), called Federal Plan for Cyber Security and Information Assurance Research and Development, “sets out a framework for multi-agency coordination of Federal R&D investments in technologies that can better secure the interconnected computing systems, networks, and information that together make up the U.S. information technology (IT) infrastructure.” Here’s more from their release (pdf):
The plan builds in part on the work of the now-extinct President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, which produced a similar report on the issue — Cyber Security: A Crisis of Prioritization (pdf) — last year that we liked very much.
I’ve only just seen the report, so I can’t give any detailed analysis, but here are the report’s ten findings and recommendations from the executive summary:
Seems hard to quibble with much of that. As the NCO press release indicates, they’re accepting comments on the report to aid in the “planning of next steps.” Those comments are due by April 28th, so get cracking.
We’ll have more as CRA prepares its comments on the plan (we’ve had strong opinions on the issue in the past).
[Editor’s note: Apologies to regular readers for the lag in posts here recently. Lots going on around town and at CRA HQ — along with some posting fingers that are getting a little worn after 400+ posts over the last couple of years — but things should be better very soon. 🙂 Thanks for the patience!]